So I am a little confused on the Master Guide (MG) requirements. I am working on getting my MG and while looking through the requirements I saw that I had completed most of them in my education. I am a dentist, went through SDA schools the whole way through, an Church Elder, and just finished my first year as Pathfinder Director. I was reading through the manual and noticed some wording that is not 100% clear and I hoped to get some guidance. Is there a time frame for your requirements to expire, i.e. I took an Adventist Heritage Class and Tour in 2003ish, so if I am working on my MG, will I not able to count that for fulfilling one of my requirements? I had emailed the GC's Pathfinder department and it seemed like they said it would count, but the manual seems to say they expire after 3 years.

Also, I noticed in the requirements section for MG, that for the fundamental beliefs, it says do all 28, while the 2002 manual says to do 15 of the 28 in the body of the text. Which is it?

With counting fulfillment, how strict are we to be. I have all these college and masters level courses that thoroughly cover the topic, but maybe not all the specifics that the manuals body states. So am I ok to count these level of courses?

I am in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and we don't have a Mission wide Pathfinder Director to ask, so I appreciate the help.

Each Division has the authority to tailor the MG requirements as they see fit. That's likely the source of these discrepancies (such as 15 vs 28 of the Fundamental Beliefs). If the manual you have is from your division, you are perfectly justified doing what it says. I would not recommend fulfilling some requirements as per one manual, and other requirements from another.

I would lean towards counting the Adventist Heritage class, especially since you received guidance from the GC on that point. If you are uncomfortable about that, go ahead and repeat the requirement. When you are finished with your MG, the last thing you want is to have an uncomfortable feeling that you took a shortcut.

Good luck!

_________________Jim Thomas
The sooner you get behind, the more time you have to catch up.